Tashan Mehta

I’ve been steeped in this world from the get-go: I did a BA (Hons) in English Literature and Creative Writing from Warwick University (UK) and an MPhil in Literature from the University of Cambridge (UK), both of which gave me an even deeper appreciation for the structure and innards of good storytelling.

This intimacy with structure is what makes me so passionate about my job, and what makes me so good at it. At Scribe Media (US), where I worked as a developmental editor, book doctor and ghostwriter, I was approached for especially challenging non-fiction projects, including restructuring a book about the physics and philosophy of time, tightening a memoir about a ground-breaking non-profit in Honduras, and rethinking the central premise of a manuscript on new medicine. At Amazon Crossing (US), where I edited novels and translations, I was called to navigate projects where the text needed a firm and yet delicate touch, and where there were multiple stakeholders who often disagreed with each other.

My career as a novelist has further honed my expertise (battling with your own words tends to do that). I am the author of two novels: The Liar’s Weave, which was shortlisted for the Prabha Khaitan’s Woman’s Voice Award, and Mad Sisters of Esi, which will be published in September 2023 by HarperCollins. I’ve been writer-in-residence at Anglia Ruskin University (UK), where I lectured BA and MA students on forms of storytelling, and I’ve been guest speaker at numerous literary festivals, including the Cambridge Festival of Ideas and the Times Literary Festival. I was fellow at the Sangam House International Writers’ Residency (India) twice, and I’ve coached aspiring writers on how to write their books via workshops.

This career has also led to some fascinating projects. I’ve worked with the Barbican (UK) to develop an artefact for their residency FIELDWORK 0.2, which explored alternate versions of the future. More recently, I was invited to CERN (Switzerland, that of the Large Hadron Collider fame) alongside other authors, scientists and academics to develop narratives to communicate ground-breaking technologies to the public. A trip highlight: I visited the Large Hadron Collider, which was incredible.

I’ve lived most of my life in Mumbai, but never really took to the city – it’s too much of a dystopia for me. When I fell in love with my best friend and he (luckily) fell in love with me as well, we moved to Goa. Sometimes, I can’t believe the luck of my life here: quiet, bird calls, forest, and a pace of life that gives you ease and wonder. I love sketching by evening light, heading to our local café to paint with friends and drink urrak, and cooking new dishes I’ll only let my partner try because I remain convinced they might accidentally poison anyone new.

Above all, I love the space it has made for me to deeply think about narrative. We often talk about books in terms of architecture, but I think of them as wild, living things, with movement in them – like a wave, picking the reader up from the first page and depositing them safely at the last one, without ever breaking or drowning them. Crafting that wave – helping authors see how their ideas can build on each other, how they can form dialogues, how they can pull in a reader – is what gives me delight.